1. Field
This relates to a refrigerator, and more particularly, to a door basket of a refrigerator installed to a rear side of a door of the refrigerator to accommodate food.
2. Background
FIG. 1 illustrates a door of a refrigerator in which a conventional door basket of a refrigerator is installed.
As illustrated, protrusions 13 extend on lateral sides of the rear surface of a door 10 of the refrigerator in the vertical direction. The protrusions 13 are formed by which a part of a door liner 11 to form a rear appearance of the door 10 protrudes backward by a predetermined height. On the rear surface of the door 10, between the protrusions 13, a plurality of supporting steps 15 extends in the lateral direction. Like the protrusions 13, the supporting steps 15 are formed by which a part of the door liner 11 protrudes backward by a predetermined height (equal to or lower than that of the protrusions 13).
On the rear surface of the door 10, a plurality of door baskets 20 is detachably installed. The door baskets 20 are installed on the rear surface of the door 10 to be spaced apart from each other by a predetermined distance in the vertical direction. Each of the door baskets 20 has an open-topped rectangular hexahedral shape and extends in the lateral direction.
Each of the door baskets 20 has an accommodating space 20s to accommodate food therein. The accommodating space 20s has an open-topped rectangular hexahedral shape corresponding to the shape of the door baskets 20.
On the other hand, the lateral sides of the door baskets 20 closely contact the inner surfaces of the protrusions 13. The lower sides of the door baskets 20 are supported by the upper sides of the supporting steps 15. Although not depicted in the drawings, the inner sides of the protrusions 13 and the respective lateral sides of the door baskets 20 include fixing protrusions and fixing recesses to mount the door baskets 20 to the rear surface of the door 10.
However, the conventional door basket of a refrigerator has the following drawbacks.
As described above, since the accommodating space 20s has the open-topped rectangular hexahedral shape, food can be inserted downward from the above into the accommodating space 20s. Thus, the top of the food to be accommodated in and taken out one accommodating space 20s must be spaced apart from the lower side of another door basket 20 positioned directly upper the former by a distance corresponding to the height of the accommodating space 20s. In other words, the height of the food to be accommodated in the accommodating space 20s is restricted by a distance in which the height of the accommodating space 20s subtracts from a distance between the door basket 20 and another door basket 20 positioned directly above the former.
Moreover, in order to prevent the food to be accommodated in and to be taken out from being disturbed by the front top of the door basket 20 and the lower side of another door basket 20 positioned directly above the former, food must be inclined at an angle when food is accommodated in the accommodating space 20s or food accommodated in the accommodating space 20s is taken out. Thus, the accommodation and the taking-out of food in and from the accommodating space 20s of the door basket 20 is troublesome.